Media

New TV Partnership in Sioux Falls is going to give us a lot of news . . . we’ll see

Starting January 13, 2020 we are going to get assaulted with news;

Beginning Monday, January 13, join us for FIRST AT FOUR NEWS on KDLT! Join KSFY and KDLT for three hours of local news starting 4 – 5 p.m. on KDLT, 5 – 5:30 p.m. on KSFY, 5:30 – 6 p.m. on KDLT, 6 – 6:30 p.m. on KSFY, and 6:30 – 7 p.m. on KDLT.

I will keep my opinion to myself for now on this concept. I wonder if they will be sharing stories, reporters and anchors? Get ready for 3 hours of wiener dog races and food truck reviews.

Angela didn’t have to drive to Tripp, SD to find corruption

While I appreciate Stormland-TV‘s heartwarming Christmas story from Tripp, SD, they really didn’t have to trudge over there to get a juicy one, they could have just walked a couple of blocks around the studio offices.

At 10th and Phillips they could see the site of the Copper Lounge collapse that the State’s Attorney, the Attorney General, the Public Assurance Alliance and the City of Sioux Falls failed to investigate, oh but the Feds did, and $50 dollars later, problem solved.

Or they could have went just one block east of the collapse site and admired our Bunker Ramp and how no one has yet to explain how we got there, oh, and no explanations from the guy who once hired Angela’s daughter to be his nanny.

It would be a few more blocks, but they could make the trek to city hall at 9th and Main and ask Paul himself.

While in the neighborhood, why not pop over to the Minnehaha Courthouse and ask the County Commission liaison, Cindy Heiberger why she didn’t keep better tabs on the State’s Attorney.

While it’s fun driving to Tripp and admiring the scenery (I made the ‘trip’ today in the vicinity). You really only have to stroll around the neighborhood to uncover corruption and bribery.

Weekly Tidbits

CORY & SD VOICE WILL WIN THEIR CASE

Let’s just chalk it up to another failure in state government;

To refresh your memories, I am challenging two main points of state petition law: first, 2019 House Bill 1094, Rep. Jon Hansen’s (R-25/Dell Rapids) circulator badge and registry scheme now mostly encapsulated in SDCL 2-1-1.3–2.1.1.9, and the state’s requirement that initiative petitions be submitted a full year before the election at which you would get to vote on them.

There are so many constitutional issues with the legislation, I don’t even know where to start. If I had to make a bet on this, I would put $1K down in the first Aberdeen telephone booth video lottery casino I could find that they will win, and win huge.

I sometimes wonder if SD State Legislators take there pocket US Constitutions (if they have ever had one) and burn it before the first day of session.

MINNEHAHA COUNTY COMMISSION SAYS ONE EMT IS A-OK

I still have not figured out why they decided to go for this in the biggest county in the state;

AMBULANCE ORDINANCE HEARING
Mr. Gearman gave a briefing on the proposed amendments as follows: Article 2, Section 6 updating language to align with South Dakota law and administrative rule; Article 6 to remove the requirement of consent and a written agreement between two licensees for special events; and Article 14 updating language to align with South Dakota law and administrative rule regarding minimum personnel requirements Other minor changes were made for the purposes of consistency and formatting. Speaking in favor of the amendments, Dr. Jeff Luther, Rural Ambulance Quality Assurance Director, explained that he believes reducing the requirement from two emergency medical technicians (EMT) to one EMT would not cause a decrease in quality. Tim Haight, 3403 W 93rd Street, Sioux Falls, inquired about the proposed amendment to Article 6. Maggie Gillespie, Senior Deputy State’s Attorney, responded to Mr. Haight’s question explaining that he would need to contact his own legal counsel if he had legal questions, and that the change to Article 6 only removes the requirement to obtain consent from the existing service area ambulance service for a special event. Jay Masur, 25968 476th Ave, Sioux Falls, Med-Star Paramedic Ambulance President & CEO, spoke in opposition to lowering the number of EMTs. Dr. Luther responded to the concerns brought forward by Mr. Masur explaining that smaller ambulance services struggle to find enough people to serve. Therefore, the requirement of two EMTs made it hard to operate. Additionally, many Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Deputies are trained EMTs with impressive response times. Mr. Gearman explained that the ordinance is a minimum standard. Ambulance services may choose to set their standards at any level they want as long as the minimum is met. MOTION by Karsky, seconded by Barth, to approve Ordinance MC31-6-19, the 2019 Ground Ambulance Licensing Ordinance. By roll call vote: 5 ayes. The entire Ordinance is on file and available for inspection at the County Auditor’s Office.

I think it is a cost saving measure for the for profit ambulance services. It will be interesting to see how staffing changes.

SOUTH DAKOTA DEMOCRATIC PARTY FINALLY GETS THEIR SH*T TOGETHER

So this was pretty cool;

The state party’s Central Committee elected Randy Seiler to serve as the chair on Saturday, according to a party announcement. Seiler, the party’s vice chair, has been serving as the interim chair since Paula Hawks resigned as chair in September. SDDP Executive Director Stacey Burnette jointly resigned with Hawks.

Isn’t it crazy that stuff is not so bad with the Dem party in SD?  I kind of wonder what kind of BS has been concocted over the past couple of years. I hope in the name of transparency the party tells us what has been going on and how they are going to fix it. This could be a great moment for them rooting out the corruption. As an Indy, I have never liked the party system. It just seems like a system that needs to go away and make government on all levels non-partisan. I had a friend tell me once that he doesn’t belong to ‘clubs’ because they seem to ‘clubby’ with lots of rules and other stupid crap. It always made me laugh, because I agree.

CITY SHUTS OFF EMERGENCY SIRENS FOR THE WINTER

I just think this is weird. Why wouldn’t you want to make sure they work all year long? There are other ‘disasters’ you might want to warn citizens about in the winter besides tornados. I almost wonder if this has to do with the embarrassment of the tornado warning system failing this summer and they are trying to minimize the failure. Hey, McFly, that is over and done with, time to move on and make sure they work moving forward. Don’t people learn from their mistakes anymore?

WHO IS BEHIND THE STACE NELSON CASE

The rumor mill has been on full cycle that the SD GOP is behind going after Nelson about blocking people of FB. They have been wanting to get Stace for his big mouth for years, and I think they want to bury him with this Federal case. I think it is funny how the SD GOP is concerned about the 1st Amendment when they want to hurt someone, but the rest of the time they are the most secretive party of all time. And corrupt. If you want to apply these rules to Nelson, which I think that is a good thing, you also have to follow them to. So if you want to make sure politicians are not blocking people on FB, maybe in the next session you should pass sweeping open meeting transparency laws . . . wait, maybe that is why Stace in trouble, he told us about the warts of the GOP.

Local TV station’s partnership is more like an ‘Open Marriage’

As I suspected, the partnership between two local Sioux Falls TV stations is turning out to be a cost saving factor in staff – all of their staff. I have seen several personalities toggle back and forth between stations including anchors and reporters, and this week both stations have been running the same stories, unedited in content.

Wasn’t the promise to the FCC and our DC delegation this;

“Gray Television has expressed that the merger will increase local news coverage and programming,” Rounds wrote. 

Quite the opposite. While I understand combining production staff, office and studio space and sales staff (that all makes business sense) using the same news footage and on-air personalities just seems a little ‘Trailer Parkish’.*

Bring on the Food Truck Pumpkin Bar Weiner Dog races!

*Somebody recently asked me what I thought of Donita Noem Trump’s latest Meth awareness campaign, and I answered, “There are two kinds of people in South Dakota. Those who have done Meth, and those who eventually will.”